Skaven
Skaven are a species of Crasskin humanoids resembling rats that hail from Kaaksipadat. Famed for their cruelty, paranoia, and general disregard for the lives of living things, skaven as a whole have little interest in making friends or diplomacy, both within the Under-Empire itself and with the world at large. Biology The majority of skaven, like most Uprights, follow a humanoid body plan with two legs, two arms, and a tail. Their prominent incisors and the wicked claws on their fingers give them the ability to fight adequately even when unarmed. There are three sexes within skavenkind: male, female, and broodmothers. The majority of skavenkind by number are either male or female. Female skaven are sterile. Much of a skaven's life path is determined at the moment of its birth, thanks to a biological caste system. The majority of ambulatory skaven are shades of brown, beige, tan, and so forth, who go on to become the teeming masses of the Under-Empire's warrens and clanrat armies. Less often, skaven are born with black fur, and consistently develop into larger, stronger vermin, and consequently are diverted to the elite military castes of skavenkind. Extremely rarely, a white or grey rat is born, and they are rapidly secured from the breeding pits to be trained in the arts of shamandry, as they are commonly known to be the favored children of the Horned Rat himself. These Grey Seers are born with small nubs on their head that develop into horns as they age, further cementing this association. All skaven but Grey Seers have a natural lifespan of roughly twenty human years, but most skaven do not survive to their fifth birthday as a consequence of their culture. Skaven make up for this by reaching maturity exceptionally quickly, in as little as six months, and through their prodigious birth rates. Nobody is exactly sure how long Grey Seers live, but it is common knowledge among rats that it is a very, very long time. Politics Skavenkind is assembled across the continents in the world in a loose and ever-changing confederation of clans, each vying with one another and outside species for local dominance of the underground network of caves that web most of the world. The strongest of these clans have seats on the Council of Thirteen, the nominal ruling body for the Under-Empire as a whole. The Council rules from Skavenblight, a city on Kaaksipadat that was once a mixed Highborn settlement before it was presumably destroyed by the Horned Rat as part of the creation of the skaven. The Council is composed of thirteen numbered seats, arranged in a circle and ascending in number clockwise around the oversized table about which the business of directing the Under-Empire is conducted. The thirteenth seat is always left open, as it is ceremonially understood to be the Horned Rat's. To the right, the twelfth seat is always taken by the reigning Seerlord, who is tasked with interpreting the Horned Rat's will in absentia (and conveniently giving them two effective votes). The remaining eleven chairs are distributed amongst the rulers of the largest and strongest skaven clans in the Under-Empire, with the more prominent clans getting the seats closest to the Thirteenth Seat (eleven and one), and descending in importance until you reach the seats directly across from the Thirteenth Seat (five, six, and seven). Currently none of the identities of the sitting members on the Council of Thirteen are known. Skavenblight is also home to the Pillar of Commandments, a massive warpstone obelisk with thirteen sides, each with thirteen dictums supposedly from the Horned Rat himself. The exact specifics of the commandments themselves are currently unknown. Notable Clans * Fage * Vour * Retch * The Southern Clan Culture and Religion Skaven, by and large, are paranoid narcissist cowards with a keen fear of death and a great degree of disregard for other species, other rats, and plans that finish in longer than ten seconds. This is because the Horned Rat demands a lifestyle of rigorous backstabbing, plotting, and intrigue from his children, and it is generally understood that if you fail to impress the Horned Rat in your lifetime, he will eat you after you die to recoup the investment of your existence. However, some deviant rats are capable of doing things like prolonging rewards, planning ahead further than right now, and having feelings about other individuals that aren't strictly negative. Enclaves cut off entirely from the Under-Empire may develop cultures capable of expressing things like love and empathy in edge cases such as a brood rat giving birth to a new generation of skaven with no adult rats to imprint proper skaven values on them. However, these enclaves likely do not last very long, especially if they have a brood rat, as skaven tend to destroy things they don't understand and take things that they want by force. Skaven invented the practice of fleshmoulding, and it is possible their close relationship to and willingness to work with warpstone (and their general lack of moral concerns when it comes to other living beings) makes them the only species capable of truly mastering it. The number thirteen is holy to the Horned Rat, and skaven delight in trying to order things in multiples or sums of it. See Also * https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Skaven#Four_Great_Clans Category:Species Category:Skaven